Monday Buzz: Goodbye Gregg, Globalization, and More

On Friday, I posted some of our recent breakthroughs in the media, including Morley Winograd and Mike Hais's piece in the National Journal and Simon's commentary on Judd Gregg's withdrawal in the Huffington Post, the Economist, the Guardian, the Washington Post, and the Hill. That commentary picked up more steam over the weekend, appearing in Gather and even the Spanish-language Sendero de Peje. From the original Huffington Post feature piece:

During the Clinton administration, Judd Gregg fought hard to deny the Commerce Secretary the ability to use the latest techniques to ensure the most accurate Census count. The goal of this effort was to make it harder for the Census to count minorities, young people and the poor, groups the Republicans do not view as part of their coalition.

Rob's last blog post was also picked up by Reuters and internationally syndicated, appearing in papers worldwide. From the Reuters article:

Some economists argue globalisation, in the sense of the increasing integration of different countries in the world economy, is the cause, acting as a transmission belt from one suffering economy to the next.

"With globalisation, the world can suffer the central cost of protectionism -- a deep fall in trade -- without passing any new laws or regulations," Robert Shapiro, head of progressive think tank NDN's globalisation initiative, said in a blog.

...

"The crux of it is that as the share of what the world produces that's traded across borders rises -- 18 percent of worldwide GDP was traded in 1990, compared to 30 percent in 2006 -- a serious recession in a few large places moves quickly around the world, driving down global trade," said Shapiro of NDN, a former undersecretary in the U.S. Commerce Department.

In other words weak demand in one country increasingly affects others because they are more dependent on exports.